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61,005 resultsShowing papers similar to Development of Microbial Indicators in Ecological Systems
ClearImproving the assessment of ecosystem and wildlife health: microbiome as an early indicator
Researchers reviewed evidence that the microbiome — the community of microorganisms living in environments and within animals — can serve as an early warning system for ecosystem disturbance, rapidly reflecting the impact of human activities before other signs of harm are visible.
Development of Ecosystem Health Assessment (EHA) and Application Method: A Review
This review traces the development of ecosystem health assessment methods, comparing biological indicator approaches and index system methods and analyzing how they have been applied to assess the health of aquatic, terrestrial, and urban ecosystems under anthropogenic stress.
A review on effective soil health bio-indicators for ecosystem restoration and sustainability
This review examines biological indicators that scientists use to measure soil health, including microbial diversity, enzyme activity, and earthworm populations. Healthy soil ecosystems depend on these biological components, which can be disrupted by pollutants including microplastics. The review is relevant because bio-indicators could serve as early warning tools for detecting the impact of microplastic contamination on agricultural soil quality.
Testate amoebae: a review on their multiple uses as bioindicators
This review evaluated testate amoebae as bioindicators across a wide range of environmental conditions, finding these unicellular protozoans are sensitive, globally distributed monitors useful for biomonitoring wetlands, soils, and freshwater systems including detecting microplastic contamination.
Bioindicators of Microplastics
This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of bioindicators for detecting microplastic pollution, covering organisms from bacteria and algae to invertebrates and vertebrates that serve as early warning sentinels for plastic contamination in the environment. The authors assess the methodological approaches for using these bioindicators and their utility for monitoring ecological health in microplastic-affected ecosystems.
Bioindicators for Forest Area Condition: A Systematic Literature Review
This systematic literature review examined flora and fauna as bioindicators for assessing forest health, identifying key species and metrics used across global studies to monitor ecosystem condition and environmental stress.
Microbial mechanisms as tools for monitoring and treating emerging contaminants in urban pollution: an overview
This review examines the role of microorganisms in detecting, monitoring, and degrading emerging contaminants including microplastics in urban environments. The study highlights that bacteria and fungi can serve as both sensitive bioindicators of pollution and active agents for biodegradation, suggesting that microbial-based strategies hold promise for sustainable environmental remediation.
Functional responses of key marine bacteria to environmental change – toward genetic counselling for coastal waters
This review examined the functional responses of key marine bacteria to environmental stressors including nutrient pollution and chemical contamination in coastal ecosystems, arguing that bacteria are overlooked both as indicators and mediators of ecosystem health. The authors call for incorporating bacterial functional metrics into marine ecosystem monitoring and management frameworks.
Rare Bacteria Can Be Used as Ecological Indicators of Grassland Degradation
Researchers used full-length 16S rRNA sequencing to study bacterial communities across degraded grasslands on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, finding that rare bacterial taxa were more sensitive to grassland degradation and soil nutrient changes than abundant taxa, and that rare bacteria may serve as reliable ecological indicators of grassland health.
Microplastics in ecological system: Their prevalence, health effects, and remediation
This review provides an overview of microplastic prevalence across different ecosystems and their potential effects on environmental and human health. The researchers discuss how microplastics enter water, soil, and food chains, and examine the various biological effects documented in organisms. They also review current remediation strategies being developed to address microplastic contamination.
Microbiomes of the Aquatic Environment
This review examines the diversity and ecological roles of microbial communities in aquatic environments, covering microbiomes associated with aquatic insects, plants, fish, phytoplankton, macrophytes, and microplastics, and their interconnected functions in nutrient cycling and primary production. The authors discuss how climate change, eutrophication, and pollution are shifting microbial community composition in ways that threaten the functioning of freshwater and marine ecosystems.
Earthworm-microbiome interactions: Unlocking next-generation bioindicators and bioengineered solutions for soil and environmental health
This review explores how earthworms and their associated microbiomes can serve as bioindicators of soil contamination from pollutants including microplastics. Changes in earthworm gut microbial communities can act as early warning signals of soil pollution, and engineered earthworm-microbiome systems show potential for environmental remediation. The study suggests that understanding these biological interactions could lead to new biomonitoring tools for assessing microplastic contamination in terrestrial ecosystems.
Translating New Synthetic Biology Advances for Biosensing Into the Earth and Environmental Sciences
This review explores how emerging synthetic biology tools including engineered microbial biosensors can be applied to longstanding problems in environmental and earth sciences, such as detecting pollutants, tracking biogeochemical cycles, and monitoring ecosystem health.
Effectiveness assessment of using water environmental microHI to predict the health status of wild fish
Researchers tested whether measuring the health of microbial communities in river water could predict the health status of wild fish living there. The study found that the environmental microbiota health index was effective for bottom-dwelling fish but less reliable for fish living in the open water, suggesting this non-invasive monitoring approach works best for certain types of aquatic species.
Promising indicators for monitoring microplastic pollution
This review evaluated promising biological and ecological indicators for monitoring microplastic pollution, arguing that standardized indicator species and metrics are needed to better track microplastic abundance, distribution, and accumulation in ecosystems.
Application of intestinal microbiota in marine fish for assessing the toxicity of typical pollutants: a literature review
This review examines how the gut microbiota of marine fish can serve as biomarkers for assessing the toxic effects of ocean pollutants, including microplastics, heavy metals, antibiotics, and petroleum hydrocarbons. The study highlights that changes in key microbial communities in fish intestines reflect environmental contamination levels and could provide valuable indicators for monitoring marine ecosystem health.
Structural and Functional Characteristics of Soil Microbial Communities in Forest–Wetland Ecotones: A Case Study of the Lesser Khingan Mountains
Researchers examined soil microbial communities across a forest-to-wetland gradient in China's Lesser Khingan Mountains, comparing mixed forest, conifer forest, wetland edge, and natural wetland. Natural wetland soils harbored the most distinct bacterial communities, driven primarily by high organic matter, nitrogen, and phosphorus content.
The role of ecogenomics in environmental and forensic discoveries
This review examines ecogenomics as an integrative tool for understanding microbial diversity and function in environmental and forensic contexts, covering applications from pollution assessment to criminal investigation using environmental DNA.
Unveiling the hidden world of microorganisms and their impact on the Earth's ecosystems
This paper is not directly about microplastics; it is a broad review of microbial ecology covering microorganism roles in biogeochemical cycling of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur, and metals, and how advances in genomics have transformed our understanding of microbial community diversity and function.
Chemical pollution and microbiomes responses
This paper reviewed how chemical pollution affects microbial community composition and function across different environments. Exposure to pollutants including plastics, heavy metals, and pesticides can disrupt microbial diversity and the ecosystem services microbes provide. The review calls for greater integration of microbiome science into environmental risk assessment.
Recent Trends and Future Challenges for Lichen Biomonitoring in Forests
This review examines recent trends in using epiphytic lichens as biomonitors in forest ecosystems, which have historically been underrepresented compared to urban and industrial monitoring. Researchers discuss how lichens respond to air pollution and climate change in forested areas and identify future challenges for expanding lichen biomonitoring programs in these environments.
Aquatic ecosystem indices, linking ecosystem health to human health risks
Researchers reviewed indicators used to assess aquatic ecosystem health and found that most existing tools don't adequately capture the risks that degraded water ecosystems pose to human health and well-being. They propose a new set of combined indicators — covering chemical contaminants, pathogens, and biological markers — to better link ecosystem health monitoring to human health outcomes.
Soil Biochemical Indicators to Monitor the Impact of Microplastics on Soil Functionality in Terrestrial Ecosystems
This paper reviews how soil biochemical indicators — including enzyme activities and microbial community metrics — can be used to assess the impact of microplastics on soil functioning. Because standard chemical analyses alone may miss functional changes, biochemical indicators provide a more sensitive early warning system for detecting microplastic-driven soil health degradation.
Gammaproteobacteria, a core taxon in the guts of soil fauna, are potential responders to environmental concentrations of soil pollutants
Researchers identified a group of gut bacteria called Gammaproteobacteria as a key indicator of soil pollution stress in soil invertebrates, finding these microbes respond sensitively to environmental contaminants and could serve as a biological signal for assessing soil ecosystem health.